As a school in the heart of Witney, we hope to be a positive presence in the town so we held the first ever 'Serving in the Community' days this term. Y7-10 took to the streets of Witney to offer their services in a variety of ways. The Besom Project were a great help in providing some contacts for us and we were sent to three homes where residents were struggling to keep up with their gardens. Our students spent the day weeding, clearing bushes and giving the gardens a complete makeover. Afterwards we received some encouraging feedback from one of the support workers who said "The children have done an amazing job on the garden and she is so pleased with it. It has put her in a more positive frame of mind about life in general and she is looking forward to the simple pleasure of sitting in her back garden with a cup of tea." A team of enthusiastic Y10s also set about moving furniture, decorating and turning a house into a welcoming home for someone who needed housing.
Other activities that we took part in were litter picking around Witney, helping supermarket customers pack their bags and take them to their cars and visiting older people in care homes. With the latter, we sent two teams to Newland House Care Home and The Homestead in Carterton where students took great initiative in preparing superb performences in the space of a morning, ready to deliver in the afternoon. They performed a variety of songs, dances, poetry readings and a dramatic retelling of the story of the prodigal son and used their musical talents to give violin and flute duets and solos. On all the visits, the students stayed on to chat to the residents who all expressed their appreciation and asked the school to visit again.
Overall, our first Serving in the Community days have been a great success and we hope to follow up next year with a greater variety of activities. The students rose to the challenge impressively, showing great teamwork and gave themselves wholeheartedly to their various tasks. They were a real credit to themselves and as one support worker said, "I personally thought the children wonderful for taking part in this project and being able to make such a difference to somebody's life."
Thank you to all the staff and parents who helped with the days; we could not have done it without you. We look forward to doing this bigger and better next year!
